


Suddenly I See

by Runadaemon



Series: Fluff Week 2020 [7]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Day 7, F/M, First Kiss, Gabriel Agreste is an Asshole, Identity Reveal, Love Square Fluff Week 2020, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22689823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runadaemon/pseuds/Runadaemon
Summary: After Hawkmoth inexplicably spams the heroes with akuma to fight, Adrien and Marinette get fed up. Then they get a clue.Alternatively, even magic suits can chafe, and sometimes that leads to reveals.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Fluff Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625758
Comments: 25
Kudos: 535
Collections: Miraculous Ladybug and Cat/Chat Noir Reveal





	Suddenly I See

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to PawsomelyBuggy for her hilarious drawing that inspired a part of this story (you'll know it when you see it). I can't believe I made it through the whole fluff week. I genuinely didn't expect to, so shoutout to the discord for the writing sprints that kept me typing.   
> I really hope everyone enjoys this, I certainly enjoyed writing it. Constructive criticism is welcome!   
> Thanks for reading!!

Love Square Fluff Week Day 7: Reveal

When Hawkmoth suddenly ramped up his attacks, there were many consequences. School days were almost worthless when half the class didn’t show up regularly. There were various reasons for people going missing. Some parents wouldn’t let their children leave the home, some children simply refused to go, some took the opportunity to skip, and others hunted down akuma (Alya, just Alya).

Many jobs took time off after the second day of constant akuma, when it became apparent that Hawkmoth was deliberately spamming the city with akuma after akuma. By the fourth day, most non-essential jobs were taking a prolonged break. By the tenth day, people began to wander back out, tired of being pulled from their homes and used against their heroes. They were determined to at least get things they needed to do done if they were going to be pulled outside anyway.

By the fourteenth consecutive day of Hawkmoth pulling akumas out of anything he could get his akuma into, the city had more or less resumed functioning. It was not an irregular occurrence to see someone light up with Hawkmoth’s mask, only to have the butterfly immediately vacate for anyone else that might be angry. Hawkmoth may have been spamming people with akuma, but he still wasn’t going to akumatize someone whose target was himself.

Marinette had taken to energy drinks, cat naps, and lots of sandwiches and cookies packed away in her bags every day. Adrien had taken to sleeping in costume and locking his door with a chair behind it, blasting anime series’ to drown out any other sounds. Adrien had also taken his ready cash and stuffed his suit’s pockets full of cheese and money for when they ran out of something. The cashiers at many convenience stores now kept their preferred orders on the counter for when they needed a quick charge.

Both heroes had taken to finding each other before attempting to find the akuma. They even met up and mapped out the city. They divided the city into chunks, and picked a meet up spot in each quadrant. Their meet up location changed depending on where the akuma raged to cut down on the time it took to find each other.

It was the most constant exercise either hero had gotten in such a short time period. It was a trial by fire, allowing them to learn more about themselves, their partner, and their kwami. They learned their limits, and how to push past them. They learned drawbacks of the suit. On more than one occasion they had to break into someone’s home to use the restroom.

Ladybug had suspicions that Hawkmoth was trying to get his hands on more miraculous. Consequently, she refused to call for help from the previously exposed fighters, and Chat Noir tiredly trusted her reasoning. This didn’t stop either from complaining and booing at the akuma when they were tired and sore and just needed 30 minutes of uninterrupted sleep.

As an effect, however, both missed school the majority of the first two weeks. By the 15th day of Hawkmoth spamming the city with increasingly ridiculous akuma, they made the mutual decision to fight the akuma only if it directly affected their daily lives, or if they were not required elsewhere. Hawkmoth’s entire goal was to get their miraculous. If they didn’t show up, he’d eventually have to give up or stick to hours where they could fight. The akuma were rarely harmful any longer, and frankly, their friends were getting suspicious. What neither admitted was that the suits were beginning to chafe, and they desperately needed time out of them.

Ladybug and Chat Noir quietly had a word with the mayor, provided a video to the news cast only to air if Hawkmoth pulled some ‘Are your heroes abandoning you’ spiel out, and explained their basic reasoning where needed. Most people were more than sick of Hawkmoth and could understand that the heroes weren’t going to play to his tune any longer.

So on the 16th day, Marinette and Adrien returned to school for the first time in at least a week for both, exempting sporadic appearances throughout the last two weeks. Marinette kept rubbing the area between her eyes and ears, and Adrien found himself scrunching his nose to relieve a minor pain he couldn’t shake.

“Oh! Hi Marinette!” Adrien exclaimed when they ran into each other in the locker room. Marinette looked too tired to be her usual excited self, so she simply gave a sweet smile. Adrien relished the surprised welcome in her bluebell eyes, having missed his classmate the most.

“Hi Adrien. How have you been?” Marinette’s voice sounded hoarse, as though she’d been recovering from a cold, but Adrien hadn’t heard of anything going around. Adrien considered asking, before deciding it would be rude to pry. He could ask Nino later. Adrien smiled at Marinette in delight.

“I’ve been good! What about you?” Adrien’s voice came out a little deeper than before, due to all the shouting he’d been doing for the last couple weeks. Hero work required a surprising amount of yelling when civilians were involved. He almost wished the city would shut back down so he could have some peace during the fights again.

“I’ve been just peachy!” Marinette smiled almost ferociously. Adrien paused, taken aback by the anger he could sense but not see. At least it didn’t feel like the anger was directed towards himself. Adrien’s smile turned nervous. “Wanna walk to class together?” Marinette chirped in a much more happy tone.

Adrien nodded, and they began walking together down the hall. Adrien found his gaze drawn to Marinette again and again. There was something incredibly familiar about her face, and the way she was walking. He found his eyes resting on the faint lines running almost horizontally between her eyebrows and her hair line. They weren’t straight, but rounded. Adrien’s eyes followed the lines again before finding his eyes stuck on the earrings Marinette wore.

“Have you always worn those earrings, Marinette?” Adrien asked. His voice sounded strange, a little distorted to his own ears, and his heart beat pounded in time to the incredulous disbelief coursing through his brain. Marinette smiled nervously and covered her ears for a minute.

“They’re heirlooms. I’ve worn them forever. Why?” Marinette turned to face him, studying his face with suspicion. Adrien scrunched his nose and Marinette’s gaze fell to his nose before sticking there. Adrien watched her bluebell eyes widen, and her mouth part before Alya interrupted them.

“Guuuurl! It’s been forever! I can’t believe you really ran off and disappeared rather than run around town with everyone! Hey Sunshine! Daddy finally let you out of the house?” Alya’s cheerful voice distracted Marinette, and Adrien smiled back noncommittally as he continued staring at Marinette. Her hair, her eyes, her height, even the marks around her face matched up.

Alya dragged Marinette off, while Adrien stared after them. “I’ve connected the dots!” He whispered quietly. For some reason, he immediately ducked and rolled, looking around the hallway suspiciously as he rose to his feet. He heard a phantom voice echoing in his head ‘You didn’t connect shit!’ but he couldn’t place where he’d heard that before.

With one last suspicious look around, Adrien ran for the classroom.

*************************************************

Marinette took her seat with trepidation. That wasn’t the first time someone had asked about her earrings, but it still made her nervous every time. There was something about the mark on Adrien’s nose that reminded her of her partner. Marinette sighed and laughed at herself for a moment. She was lucky, but she wasn’t THAT lucky.

Still, when Adrien walked through the door, Marinette found herself studying him. His hair was shorter, and his skin tone was a little paler. But his eyes matched from the time Chat Noir became Ladybug, and his height matched her partner. Marinette studied his body, examining his shoulder width, his hip flexion, and his confident stance, checking off a mental image of her partner and dragging her eyes back up to his.

“EEP!” Marinette covered her mouth, but it was too late. Adrien had obviously noticed her staring. The challenging, almost flirty look in his eyes embarrassed her more than realizing she’d been caught checking him out. Marinette couldn’t hear Alya asking her what was wrong. She was too busy staring at Adrien, watching his eyes dart from her ears to her hair, and back to her eyes.

As she stared, Adrien casually brought up one of his hands, and deliberately ran it through his hair in a slow, knowing motion. Marinette’s mouth ran dry as Adrien’s eyes went half-mast and he smirked at her in an infuriatingly sexy way. Without thought, words slipped from her tongue. “Oh, it IS you. Damnit.”

Adrien huffed a laugh as he stalked towards her. Neither of them paid any attention to Alya and Nino, both asking questions they couldn’t answer. Adrien stood next to Marinette’s desk for a moment while she mock scowled up at him, before leaning over and studying her face from less than a quarter of a meter away. Marinette jumped when he leaned closer and reached out to trace the lines of her mask, but refused to flinch or back away.

“Well, hello there little lady.” Adrien murmured gleefully. The knowing smirk on his face was rapidly growing into a confident and ecstatic grin. “Fancy meeting you here.” Marinette flushed before jutting her chin out confidently. This may be the love of her life, but he was also apparently her dorky, silly kitty. She wasn’t going to embarrass herself in front of her partner any more than she already had.

“Hello handsome.” Marinette murmured back, smirking as his face began to pink up. She leaned even closer, reducing their distance to centimeters apart. With a teasing finger, she tapped gently at the red spot she’d been puzzling over earlier. “You seem to have a little something there. Rough… night?” Adrien gulped before narrowing his eyes at her, more than ready for a battle of wits.

Like her, he seemed to sense that how this played out might shape the rest of their lives together. Adrien upped the stakes, leaning just a little closer, fanning his breath across her lips and watching her face flush with blood. “I think if anyone would know how rough last night was, it’d be you.” Adrien’s face was so close, and with such a provocative statement, Marinette very briefly felt her soul leave her body.

It was a nice feeling. Bodiless, free of the blood frantically pulsing through her veins, no worries about the sweat itching the back of her neck and forehead. Marinette already missed being a free floating soul, and she’d hardly left her skin. What was happening again? Oh yes, Adrien-cum-Chat-Frickin-Noir was trying to murder her in broad daylight.

Not on Ladybug’s watch. If anyone was going to be murdered today, it was going to be her partner. How dare he end up being right? She really couldn’t resist what was under his mask, damn him! She had to do damage control. She had to… She had to establish dominance! Marinette blinked at Adrien, fluttered her lashes prettily, and tilted her head to the side as though about to kiss him.

As Adrien’s eyes dilated, Marinette smirked at him. “Oh, I think we both know e x a c t l y how rough things have been lately. Don’t we…beau gosse?” Adrien’s eyelashes fluttered with pleased excitement, before he leaned just a little closer. Marinette could feel his lips hovering so close, if she licked her lips, she could taste him. Just when she was about to lean back and play off the conversation, Adrien’s eyes popped open in alarm and he lurched toward her with a grunt.

As close as they’d been hovering, he hardly had to move to touch their lips, yet Adrien seemed to have been bowled over by the force of someone else. Marinette felt his lips press hard as she fell back from shock and felt him follow helplessly. Automatically, Marinette’s hands came up to support Adrien, and her eyes fluttered shut.

Amidst roars of “ROSE!” “NOT MY ADRIKINS!” and “ I’m SORRY BUT They were DRIVING ME CRAZY!” Adrien and Marinette closed their eyes and enjoyed the first consensual kiss they would both remember. Adrien’s arms came up to cradle Marinette as he awkwardly hung over her desk, while Marinette sent one hand into his hair, tugging teasingly at his ear for a moment.

Eventually they found themselves smiling too hard to continue the kiss, and broke it, happily staring into each other’s eyes. As though scripted, they both laughed and touched their foreheads together. After they stopped laughing, Marinette looked at her partner’s beautiful, natural green eyes and spoke from the heart.

“I’m so glad it’s you.”


End file.
